Farage’s supporters attacked a woman... and he laughed

0:00This is a global production. The biggest story is in the news and by far, don't tell anyone I said that. The best callers in the business. Sit back as we get into it with all the best bits from my show on LBC. I don't know, I've sometimes tell you to give your head a wobble, don't I? And on other occasions I worry that we seem to be sometimes the only people responding correctly to obvious problems and obvious dangers. I guess quite early in the week to mention Donald Trump, goodness me, there are no, I told you so big enough are there to account for the people who thought he was going to be okay, let alone the people who thought he was going to be brilliant. And I'm obsessed, as you know, with the analogy of the boiled frog, the idea that there really bad stuff happened very gradually, so gradually in fact that you don't really notice it until it's almost over. And that means that you're not calling out, they're not even milestones, are they?

1:03They're like increments, slowly the temperature being turned up so you have increments. And I think we're in one of those periods, but I want you to tell me to give my head a wobble in a way. I want you to tell me that there's nothing that extraordinary going on and that some of the scenes that we saw over the course of the last weekend are either a little local difficulty or no big deal. So the scenes in Dover and Portsmouth, if you missed them. I think you called them fighting age men, do you? Masked and balaclav at fighting age men descended uninvited upon British communities to terrorise anybody in the vicinity. I think that's a fairly accurate description of what happened. I just want to be sure I'm getting the language right. And remember that whenever there are farage riots or protests outside buildings that supporters of reform have publicly called to be set on fire and that kind of thing, there's always a disproportionate number of domestic abusers present. They are drawn to these sort of moments like moth to a flame and I won't yet be able

2:06to find out about the people active this weekend because as far as I'm aware, no arrests were being made. That despite the fact that they're currently, I think people still languishing in British jails for the crime of planning protests on British roads in support of just stop oil. That should probably be on our list somewhere, shouldn't it? This extraordinary example of two-tier policing. Oh, that's another one. So we've got fighting age men and we've got two-tier policing. It's almost as if the people who use those phrases casually are actually the liars, isn't it? So anyway, a bunch of fighting age men in balaclavas and masks turn up to terrorise British communities organised and entirely unchecked. And there's a part of me that is more worried about what went on at the NEC in Birmingham. While Nigel Farage was delivering a speech to his party faithful than I am by that and I'm going to tell you why. This is a business, okay? Whether you're asking people to give you money to string tattie flags up from various

3:09lamp posts again uninvited and largely unwanted by the local community or whether you're asking people to pay for your legal fees even though you've got Elon Musk paying for it already or you're asking people to send you money because you're going to defend our women while organising protests that are attended by a disproportionate number of domestic abusers, whatever it may be, these are businesses. They're largely online businesses but as we saw with the flags, they are now breached and they're breaching the offline world, they're breaching reality. And that is more of a normal process, the ups and downs of far-right agitation, being tracked for years by organisations like Searchlight and Hope Not Hate. But what we saw on the conference floor in Birmingham on Saturday, I can't quite believe it, still, and not just what we saw but the response. So Farage is delivering his speech, a young woman heckles him.

4:12I think over the ongoing investigation into alleged attempts to secure illegal funding from somebody they believed to be a foreign based donor. I told you on Friday that the story would change on that. He was denying any wrongdoing and I say give it 10 minutes and he'll be offering you up a different story like he went from saying that the 5 million quid was perfectly above board and they'd taken advice and they'd definitely done nothing wrong to say well actually maybe I didn't feel in the appropriate forms and then with the latest one. Absolutely and I was spoken to a top KC absolutely everything's fine to now claim he didn't actually hear the conversation in which the alleged offences were alluded to or indeed described. So we knew that was going to happen and he's delivering his speech and he gets heckled. And the crowd seems to and going and look at the footage now, I don't often do this actually because I always think the pictures are better on the radio but I don't think they are on this occasion. Go to LBC dot code.uk, have a look at someone's name attacking a young British or I don't care about her ethnicity, sorry but these people do so I don't know whether we're supposed

5:15to mention it or not attacking a young white woman and it wasn't a fighting age man. It was a well pass fighting age man appearing or attempting to sort of brutalize her with his walking stick or his crutch and it was the violence not just of the actions but of the intent that stopped me in my tracks and listen to be absolutely clear. If that had happened at a Conservative Party conference or a Labour Party conference or a Liberal Democrat conference or a Green Party conference where protesters might have been heckling about something else as long as it was peaceful and attempt to disrupt not an attempt to commit any crime of any sort or any offense against a person. I would be similarly shocked and perhaps this will sound a little bit naive. I can't quite believe it would happen in that way because the hatred on the faces of those people was visceral and palpable and I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like

6:15it in the context of a party conference. I mean I might have seen stuff like that on a single issue, March or demonstration where passions were running incredibly high but to see a British politician currently still doing well in the polls. Heckled while giving a speech and the heckler. The woman, one person grabbed her hair and really yanked it and the man who'd been trying to hit her with his crutch then puts his hand on her face and obvious assault to my unto you to die but motivated by what? Where does that come from? He's got 5 million quid to spend on security. Sorry I forget whether that's this week's story last week or next week's but nonetheless no one disputes the existence of the 5 million quid. These people are going to be removed from the conference hall efficiently and fairly quickly. They are expected. It is par for the course. It happens at all party conferences.

7:16But this sort of mob violence by way past fighting age men and women absolutely shocked me, absolutely shocked me and listen by all means remind me of your personal grievances at this point whether it's just stop oil or whether it's Palestine action or whatever it may be but that's not actually what we're talking about. What we're talking about is the mood of extraordinary violence in the conference hall for a mainstream I'm going to say supposedly for a supposedly mainstream political party and this is what I mean by increments. Things getting very gradually much worse until things are awful. I think this is an awful moment. I think this is a moment of epic awfulness not because of what happened in that hall but because of what happened next because Farage appeared to be giggling about it from the stage. I think one of their Numbat may have made jokes about having a wit brown to buy the

8:16abuser a new crutch and then on his Bob Generic took to the airwaves yesterday while talking about the brutal assault of a young white woman in Birmingham. I just want you to think for a minute what on his Bob Generic would have to say if a young white woman had been assaulted in Birmingham by a brown man or a black man. The kind of man with the kind of face that he complained about last time he was in Birmingham because there were just too many of them. Just for a moment imagine what on his Bob Generic would have to say about a young white woman being assaulted beaten, battered, brutalized by a person of colour because when it was a white person, white people plural doing it and I can't tell from the footage you have a look and tell me actually whether there was any attempt whatsoever to stop them or whether they were just a sort of tip of a nice burglary of hatred and fury.

9:18It didn't seem to me that anybody there was outraged or disgusted. It seemed to me that perhaps a whole hall was complicit in this conduct but again tell me by all me is to give my head a wobble. I don't think you're going to be able to persuade me that this isn't one of the single most disgusting things I've ever heard a member of Parliament say and he said it in a conversation with Louis Goodall yesterday. What would you expect them to do? Well look I've just let her out rather than attacking her. You're really saying that a climate wherever she is so far left activist. It doesn't really matter who she is she doesn't need to be treated like that. She's not a far left activist. A far left activist who infiltrates a party conference. The politics you are. She stands on a chair screams abuse and the leader of a party tries to disrupt a party conference. It's really annoying. And then she's moaning that a pensioner and physically a pensioner knocked her on the head with a crutch. I mean come on you get alive. I mean he's just hideous right? And that is absolutely hideous conduct. It's prepared as well. It's planned this.

10:18A young woman gets attacked. I mean listen if on this board wants to volunteer to be hit over the head with a crutch by a pensioner then fair play to him. He can tell me how much it hurts. If he wants to have his hair yanked. At full strength while he is being sort of carried from a room. Then he can come back and say actually no it is quite painful. So it's the way it happened. Already that language of other ring a far left activist. What does that even mean? Somebody who was objecting to filmed evidence that forms the basis of allegations of wrongdoing. That have already seen two members of the inner circle of this party dismissed. And I mean this yeah I'm 90% on this. This is just absolutely awful. Worst than the things that we saw in Port Smith or Dover. Although obviously not if it's your community because the last thing you want is a bunch of ballet-clavoured men rampaging through your streets.

11:19And I've just seen evidence of them trying to dox our inner lie volunteers. So people who risk their lives to save others now being targeted by some of that. Well it's online so you always have to be a little bit careful. Concluding too much. But the day has dawned where a young woman can be brutalised on the floor of a party conference being held by a supposedly mainstream party. And I just don't think enough people are noting the seriousness of that moment. And of honest Bob Jenneryx response because what he's really doing there. He's saying that she had it coming. He's victim blaming. He is saying to his followers that if somebody gets on your nerves. Oh and the least they can expect is to be battered. To be beaten, to be brutalised. To be assaulted. Probably criminally. And it's a mainstream political party. Supposedly. You know I've never really bought that. I mean if it were a fascist movement, I know ostensibly and explicitly fascist movement,

12:20we'd be less shocked because that's what they do. That's what they've always done. If it was, if it was EDL thugs, we'd be less shocked because that's what we were taught to expect. But that's someone's mum attacking that young woman. That's someone's grandad probably. And that that that violence was deep. And I don't get it. I mean listen, I've been heckled. I've had people removed from halls where the abuse was off the scale. I remember doing an event with Sadeek Khan. I think I told you about it. The seconds in. There were children in the room. This was during the Ula's nonsense. Someone stood up and said, F off-gurbles you. And then the word that I can't even really allude to on the radio. If I was in a room, I mean, God could you imagine how I would feel? If somebody heckled at one of my events, and two of my centreist grandad chums, decided to attack her. Physically, a woman stands up and says, Oh Brian, you're a hypocrite or oh Brian, you're a fraud. And two people in the in the same part of the room,

13:22grabbed her by the mouth, hit her, with a metal pole, pulled her hair so hard. I imagine chunks of it were left in her hands. Could you imagine? What would I do? Would I go to be interviewed by Louis Goodall or by John Sople on Sky and say, well, she had it coming? What do you expect? I've got books to sell. She infiltrated my event. What's wrong with those people? You know, fresh in my memory when that footage dropped was the conversation we had on Friday with a few family members about the fractures and the fissures that have appeared in their families since Farage rose to prominence. The people who can't speak to their parents anymore, the people who don't speak to their children anymore, the siblings who are estranged, because of what they say about foreign-born people or second-generation immigrants, the way they speak about other human beings,

14:24they're so violent, so poisonous that people are taking the decision to keep their grandchildren away from them. Talk about radicalisation in the context of young people. What's wrong with those elderly people at that? What's happened to them? What are of the... I think there may have been more than one women attacked, but certainly the most prominent one, the one that features in the footage we're speaking to Nick Ferrari earlier and described the reaction of the cult leader. I think what was just the shopping is the reform response to my thoughts. You know, at the time for us last row was being sorted, the next day the Anderson Occupy and the McCain for the man who hit me and just yesterday, General just missed the whole thing with the group who... Well, I want to come to that, but can I just clarify, because I was not at the conference, would Mr. Ferrage have been able to see the treatment that you were getting? Well, yeah, I was sitting through roads from the podium. And it's yours. You say he was laughing at it? He was laughing at it, you know, and then decided to call us boring,

15:24but I think most people would probably agree it's better to be called boring than corrupt. So Ferrage laughed. On his pop-generic mocked, and 30-perly made a crash joke, I mean, crikey, at least some things in life are constant. And a young woman, a young white woman, got attacked. And this is hashtag protect our girls, hashtag protect our women territory, isn't it? Let's take our lead from the leader. They loved it. They actually loved it. On his pop-loved it. He wants to see more of it. What do you expect? 30-perly thought it was funny. That's a woman over there getting attacked with a pole. I will let's sort of have a whip round to buy the attacker a new pole. And Nigel Ferrage apparently found it funny, according to the woman who was there, third row. What has happened to those attackers? What has happened? I don't know anyone like that. Imagine my mum's friends 10, 20 years ago, attacking a young woman in a public meeting,

16:25or in a political conference, because they didn't like the heckling. What the hell has happened? Not just to them, but to all of us. What has happened to our country? That a young woman can be brutalized in public and elected parliamentarians are celebrating. Time for a quick break now. Then you're going to hear some of the most insightful callers in the history of phoning radio, as ever. The standard today was incredibly high. Paul Vienn is in. Paul Vienn, what would you like to say? James, I mean, you pretty much covered everything. So I'm going to get a little bit emotional. Okay. Well, you can take all the time you want. I'm just really angry. Really angry. I was a guy, I'd be very emotional. Yes. Well, it's better than reacting like the people in the whole in Birmingham, did we?

17:25Indeed, indeed. And the actual violence on the face of that man. It's extraordinary. It just blew me away. And then, if you ring a lot of generic, when John Soe pulled into the meeting yesterday, and he said, booze, booze. I mean, John Soe pulled George Opt as well. It was just incredible. I mean, violence against women and girls is so prevalent in the UK at the moment, didn't you? They're the ones that they're the only ones that care about it, Paul Vienn. These are the only people that speak up to protect our women and girls. Absolutely. So there's a demonstration of what they really think of that violence against women and girls. So now, as them as a party, how are they going to promote what they're going to be doing about violence against women and girls? Are they going to gaslight it? And tell us that this has not actually happened. I don't know. He's doing that with the conversation with the man he thought was a donor,

18:25he's saying he wasn't listening. He's no evil here, no evil. Speak no evil. I don't know that they can claim this didn't happen. He was on the stage, wasn't he? He was on the stage watching it unfold. We heard this morning from the young woman in the crowd, and she was at the moment. He could see the young woman. Boring, boring, boring, you know, getting everyone to chant that kind of... Well, let's have a little... Let's just check that our memories are not deceiving us, Paul Vienn. What do they say? Order, order... That poor young girl, she looked like she was going to do herself with injury, didn't she? Well, there's a saying I've got for that, you know what it is, don't you? Boring, boring, boring... Boring. Well, she didn't do herself an injury. That was his supporters and fans that were doing her an injury. Exactly. Doing her an injury. Exactly. Now, I appreciate that if someone is making a protest in there, and security can remove them, but safely and lawfully, but for people in the audience to then begin to attack,

19:28Paul Hare, wrackle over this over the head, he grabbed her face. He grabbed her face. Watching that moment to me, I was thinking, how are you as a party going to protect women and girls, and how are the supporters of this party, who, you know, that one of their mantras is, you know, protect our women and girls? How are they not seeing that and thinking, no, they're not protecting our women and girls? And that was a white woman. I'm a woman of colour, and I... It scares me. Maybe there's brackets that they never told us about to protect our women and girls, except from us, closed brackets. Yeah, exactly that, James. Exactly that. What's happened to those people? I don't... I don't want to believe they were always like that. I can't believe that the woman who grabbed her hair with her face twisted in hatred and fury was like that 10 years ago. Maybe she was, but I think it's unlikely. What's happened to them? They've been indoctrinated. Into what, though? Because I mean, I get that they hate foreigners,

20:29and they probably hate you, because you've got one of those faces that on his Bob Jenric finds so offensive and so are approaching hate seeing on the tele. But... Yeah. But someone asking questions about, you know, legitimate journalistic inquiries, heckling. Didn't someone try and give Theresa May a P-45 on the stage at the party conference a few years ago? That happened, right? I didn't imagine that. Could you imagine if the Tory faithful had perhaps a man, so it wouldn't have felt quite the same? But... No. The violence being undertaken by... But what's happened to that lady? What has happened to her? But also in the background, the man with the face contorted with violence in the background there, there were women who had smiles, faces of gleeve, seen another woman being attacked. Yeah, I mean, it is often the bystanders, isn't it, that are even more shocking than the bullies the people who are sitting there lapping it out rather than the people who have lost control in that moment and may hopefully feel absolutely mortified afterwards when they see the footage of themselves

21:30presumably committing crimes. Paul Vienn, if it had been a woman of colour, do you think the reaction would have been any different? A woman of colour wouldn't have probably been allowed in there anyway, and that'd be so well a brother, man. Or possibly they might have invited pretty good how, but I would imagine, let's just say if I attempted to get a ticket to go to that conference, they probably would have looked into my background who is usually a journalist, what she all about, she's an activist, etc. They would have probably looked a lot more into my background than they would, the violent people that they welcomed. I don't think so, but you see, I'm not making excuses for a framer. I don't think they are violent people in the normal sense of that phrase. People that are always looking for trouble, people that are always kicking off. There is something in their bloodstream that is newly arrived. That's a woman is heckling someone at an event. As I say, I've witnessed it, I can't even count

22:32how many times I've witnessed it myself, or even being targeted by it myself. Or being interviewed someone on stage, I mean heckling is the thing, isn't it? It's a big thing, something I even argue, it's a British value, you wouldn't be able to do it in Stalin's Russia, or in Iran, or in North Korea. And it turns out that there are a lot of Nigel Farage fans who don't think you should be allowed to do it here either. And yet, they're the ones who preach about freedom and protecting women. Pauline, thank you. I understand your emotion. I never feel I don't think you do, but never feel anything other than validated in sharing it so powerfully. Liz is in Cardigan. Liz, what would you like to say? I think this was the thing that shocked me the most. It was the elderly women carrying somebody at somebody's hair. Yes. It just, I can't squad how it makes me feel. But what I wanted to come on and say is this is normal. No. This is normal behaviour for people. Look at Nazi Germany, look at Yugoslavia and Cybrenica.

23:34History is full of a percentage of a population getting control of power and using it to hate. How many people is it? It might be 25% of the population. So I don't think this is abnormal. I think historically this is normal and that's the really scary thing. Because society provides guardrails and politicians police them. Politicians are the ones that tell their followers that is absolutely unathema to everything that we stand for. You can be as angry as you want to be, but you never lay hands on anyone. But especially not a young woman doing what I mean is peaceful protest. Yes, what's happened is within the population there is a certain percentage of people who are like this and the rest of us say that's not acceptable. Because if you look since World War II, society has been moving towards not being like this. I mean I'm old enough to remember things like

24:36rock against racism in the ATs. And I walked past South Africa House so often with the protests there, so many people in some of you may have said no, this is not acceptable, this is not who we are. And that's what our culture and society was like. And then political correctness became a bad thing. And the oil tanker of decency and progress started turning round, didn't it? Yes, yeah. And old Nigel Farage was on the bridge. Yep, and we always go back to Brexit, don't we? I think it gave people permission to articulate what they would previously to ashamed to articulate, yes, actually. Yes, Brexit said it's okay to hate, it's okay to other. And that was easy in Europeans. So we were supposed to replace with people from the commonwealth, but it's the people from the commonwealth who is now okay to hate another. So there's not even a semblance of consistency or honesty with these people. And there can't be because racism is the biggest lie of all. So that's where I think this is coming from, unfortunately,

25:38we've stopped this happening. This isn't something strange. It's what people are actually like. How far can we go in condemning the politicians responsible with the obvious and constant caveat that anybody minded to deploy violent tactics against any of them is as bad as the people who deployed violent tactics on the floor of the reform party conference on Saturday. But could we say that Generic appears to be applauding it? He's certainly excusing the violence, but he appears to be welcoming it. Would you go that far? Yes, because again, it allows people to act out their hate. I must look at these, a lot of these people have grown up while I was in the good times. But for some reason, it is something that's the worst bit that's had it so easy and so good. And so equal, it's difficult to explain other than the fact that within them, there is this hatred and the politicians know this, politicians understand

26:41that if you access this hate, it's a very powerful thing. And we're seeing it being articulated in all sorts of contexts, but I think like me, you still can't quite believe you saw it on the floor of a conference being thrown by us supposedly, mainstream and respectable political party. It's fascism, isn't it? When you start getting attacked physically in a political meeting for expressing any form of opposition to the dear leader? Yes, and I think the part of the problem is people won't call it fascism until it's too late. They never do, do they? No, no, you've got to start calling it, this is what it is, it's fascism. And politicians are manipulating the base instincts of people. And in some ways, those base instincts are to belong in a group like you. Yeah. So that's what the men marching is about. They want to be in the group. 20, 30 years ago, they might be on the terraces forming groups who went around beating each other up. So I mean, to be fair, you behave like that at the football,

27:43you'd be banned from the ground for life, actually, whichever, whether you were at home or in a way, and yeah, no, I know, you know that. I just think some people listening, who don't go to football regularly, may not realize that it's all lies. They don't care about the things that they profess to care about. They don't care about the safety of women, clearly, because they are celebrating violence against a woman. So it is just, even that is an excuse to attack the incomemer, the foreigner. Here is a crime committed by a refugee against a woman. My god, I care so much about women. Here is a crime committed by a reform party member against a woman. I don't care at all. In fact, boohoo, so on his Bob Generic, on the day. They don't care at all about women being victims of violence. They appear to actively enjoy it. I think that's why we're so shocked. Or at least that, I mean, you probably knew that already, but that's my male privilege kicking in. I'm really shocked that they are actively enjoying an active vicious violence against a young woman. Jasmine does in-hampster. Jasmine, what would you like to say?

28:44It's a simple point and then maybe a half-baked complex point as well. So the simple point is racist or racist. And personally, I've got no issue with that. It's an opinion. They're entitled to it. They're entitled to express it. Where I have trouble with is, you mentioned earlier, and the callers have mentioned about the guardrails. And the dissolution of guardrails. And traditionally, media have played a really important role in that. And they seem to have advocated all responsibility around, I'll use a familiar vernacular here, calling a spade a spade. We've normalized so much in this boiling frog analogy, when everything is utterly predictable, because the US is front-run in the direction of travel here. So we've normalized what reformed stand for, the language that they use. It was predicated by Boris Johnson, with some of his utterings in Parliament, stood at the dispatch box as well. But it's not challenged anymore. And the media have just accepted it. They refer to reform as a party,

29:45not a racist party, or even now a fascist party, when that seems to be precisely what they are. At the very least, I would say, from a media perspective, a journalist is entitled to constantly refer to them as racist reform party. Because that marketing is the least that journalist, responsible journalists can do, to try and rebalance the normalization of racist policies, because it's not normal. It shouldn't be normal. And that's why I keep talking about the frog, because it, you know, Xera Pochen would have been fired, even by Nigel Farage, if she had said, I can't bear seeing black and white, black and brown faces on my television. If she'd said that four years ago, it would have been at the very least, a yellow card offence on his Bob Generic going to Birmingham, Robert Generic going to Birmingham, and complaining about the number of faces like yours that he saw on the streets. That would have been at least a yellow card, possibly a red card, not that long ago, even in a racist party. But as racist migrates to fascists,

30:47all of these things change, up to and including the absolute celebration of violence against women. And I think as horrific as what happened to that Hecler was, and 100% was, for me, equally disturbing, were the visuals at the port protests, because they were all dressed uniformly. And I'm not, you know, I'm not yet old enough to, well, I'm never going to be old enough to remember the black shirts. I don't think that was an accident, that they were all dressed as black. And that's a powerful image. But the media are bending over backwards, not to say this was a racist protest. You know, it's a small votes protest of quote, thuggish behavior says the government. Well, you know, it's protect our women, and then it turns out that most of the men arrested at the protests have got history of domestic abuse, or it's protect our women, and then a woman gets attacked in the middle of them, and they all love it and join in. I mean, it is just comical, actually, when you think about it. But does it change anybody's mind?

31:48Is anybody sitting here now, apart from our friend Crutchman over here? Is anybody sitting here now going, God, he's, yeah, hang on. I don't like violence against women. How can I, how can I be cheering these people on? Yes, if the answer, undoubtedly will put some people off. However, unfortunately, I also think net net, it will attract a lot more as well. Oh, God, really? I think what's, what's the violence? Yeah, what we're witnessing is the translation of the, the cesspit of online abuse into real life. Yeah. And we're moving to the volume. Just as the way the flags became a physical articulation of online poison and hatred, so the verbal violence now spills out into first the streets, and then reform UK party conference. Time for a quick break now, then, an entirely different conversation, another story that is currently leading the news agenda, and I really want to know what you think about it.

32:59And I love this subject. I love talking to you about it. I love listening to you reflect upon it, and I also love, modestly, the fact that we are recognising much more the reality of special educational needs. And sometimes it is even reported responsibly. Schools and councils in England, I read in the Guardian this morning, are expecting the proportion of children with special needs plans to double to one in ten, as families rush to secure support before changes come in. It suggests perhaps that the policy change may be a little bit hasty and possibly misjudged, but I welcome the fact that more and more learning difficulties, ADHD, autism, etc, are being recognised. But this surge is going to put an enormous amount of pressure upon the system, and EHCPs, as they are called, which are perilously hard to secure, will now be the subject of desperate attempts

34:01by parents to secure them before the rules governing them change. And the best answer to this question ever is why is there so much more of this about? And the best answer is there isn't. It's equally possible, in my view, much more probable, that this has always been the case. We just only relatively recently got the hand of diagnosing it. You know, it's so hard, isn't it, sometimes, to remember stuff? You sort of think back, you don't have to go back very far, to when, if you were poorly, they'd stick a leach on you. You know, the advances in diagnosis, there was some incredible doctors back in the day. I think Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, I mean, hypocritees, and then in this corner of the world, we were probably better before the dark ages than we were after, but you would stick a leach on someone. You'd treat people with, you know, people, try and pray people better. The idea that there's something casting stone

35:03about diagnostic processes is ridiculous and hilarious. Constantly advancing, constantly discovering more, constantly making progress, constantly recognizing things as being differences, which were previously misunderstood and misrepresented. I find myself fascinated by the people who would get diagnosed now, but didn't get diagnosed then. That's, I think, probably more relevant to more areas of our lives than just about anything else, that the fact that now you probably would have got at least a diagnosis and hopefully some help, but then you got nothing. And the reason I'm fascinated by this is twofold. The first is, it really drives the coach and horses through the idea that there is something faddish or fashionable about seeking a special educational needs diagnosis. It's just that we are now recognizing things

36:03that we didn't used to recognize. The second reason why I really like it is because of my enduring fascination with the other you. Like, we've returned to this quite a lot lately, haven't we? And I always explain it through the lens of my own adoption, but it's not just that. It's it's, it's, who would you be if it was not for that formative experience? You know, if you had a really bad formative experience, if you had an abusive parent, who would you be if you hadn't had an abusive parent? If you had a brilliant loving, dedicated parent or an inspirational teacher who actually set you on the course that you followed for the rest of your life, who would you be today if you hadn't had that teacher? Who would you be? Because you'd still be you, but you wouldn't be you. I don't know why I find this so fascinating, but I really do because I think it's probably the shortest cut to empathy. If I'm trying to get you to feel sorry for someone who's not you, then the idea that you could have been a hundred different people, but you would still be you, depending on, you know, the family you were born into, the schools that you went to,

37:04the experiences that you had, the encounters that you made, the books that you read, the films that you watched, the music that you listened to, the friendships that you forged, the romances that you enjoyed. All of these bricks come together to create who you are today. But if it was a bunch of different bricks, your DNA would be the same, but you would not be you, and yet you would still be you. So what difference would it have made to your life if you had been diagnosed at school? I mean, it's a bit speculative, but I think it could be interesting. It's a variation on a conversation we've had before about getting a late life diagnosis. So we're going to work on the principle that you know you have, what would now be called a special education or need, but it was not recognized when you were at school. So really it's a question about what happened when you were at school, because these conditions were not recognized and diagnosed on anything like the level that they are now.

38:06So we're looking at speech and learning difficulties, we're looking at ADHD, we're looking at even at autism, and the fact that as an adult, you know that that's you, but as a child, nobody did. I don't know where I fit into this conversation, to be honest with you, but I do know that I was a troublemaker when I was a kid, and I really, really, really didn't want to be. That's the bit that I think others find so hard to understand. I was the boy sometimes that other mums didn't want their boys to play with, because they'd get into trouble if they played with me, and it was true. I remember sitting a scholarship exam for my second school, my big school, and in the interview process, I don't think I've told you this before, I completely forgotten about it, it just came into my mind when I was reading this story this morning, in the interview process for the scholarship, which was like the most important day of my life at the time, probably in many ways. They said, why do you want to come to this school? It's a fairly obvious question, I hadn't really prepared an answer,

39:07and I can't quite believe what came out of my mouth. I said, I want to start again. I'm 13 years old. I'm 13 years old, and I said, I want to start again. I don't want to have a reputation for being naughty, going in front of me. 13 years old, I'm quite proud of that kid, actually, having that clarity of thought, I don't want to be a naughty boy at my new school. Spoiler alert, I was, I got expelled five years later, but still, inside, I didn't want to be the person that kept getting into trouble. And, you know, normal schoolboy trouble, it kind of denies the many stuff. But still, that moment of realising, and we used to get beaten a lot as well at the school that I'm talking about. So it wasn't as if deterrents worked. It was as if you couldn't help but be naughty. You couldn't help but shout out in class. You couldn't help but, go, go, go, go, go, go, go a bit too far when when you were teasing a teacher, not knowing where the lines were, that would push the teacher into a place of anger instead of a place of resignation, and just being that person.

40:07Not the main one, by the way, I think there were kids at my school who got beaten more than I did, and there was some terrible stuff going on in the background at the school that I'm talking about, really terrible stuff that thankfully never, ever touched on, touched me. But I was naughty, I didn't want to be naughty. I didn't want to be lazy. I wanted to be able to do my homework. I'm going to go to a new school now, and I'm not going to be naughty, and I'm not going to be lazy, and I'm not going to be a trouble maker. But of course, I was, because it was in me. Still is. And what would my life have been if I'd got help? If it had been recognised. So, well, at the reason why you can't do your homework, the reason why you've got 18 politics essays outstanding when you're going to sit your politics, except then, is because you've got XYZ, and all, because you've not done this or you need to do that, and this will help. And it just amazes me, because of course, I've done okay. I mean, I don't want to sound too smug, or even smuggler than usual,

41:10but I'd love almost every single scintilla of my current existence. I mean, what a gift, what a blessing it is to be able to say that. But I look back on the parts of my life that didn't go as well as I hoped, and I see recurring themes, all contained within that little hat trick of childhood, labelling, naughty, lazy, trouble maker. What, what your life have been like, do you think? If you got the sort of help and support that children now are much, much more likely to get, then we were 30, 40, perhaps even 20 years ago. Because I refuse to join in with the condemnation or even suspicion of these stories. It, look, if, again, it's a safety net, isn't it? So, if it turns out that there is massive overdiagnosis, or there is massive fraud, then that is a price I am prepared to pay for catching all the children who need to be caught.

42:10I always think of any aspect of the welfare state as a safety net, right? So, we're all on a tightrope. Every single one of us, we're walking tightrope. Sometimes we realise it, it feels like a tightrope. The court is all is pumping through our veins. Other times we don't know that we're walking a tightrope until we fall off it and wonder where we're going to land. And I always think of society, not just the welfare state, as the safety net into which you fall. And if it's not there, you're absolutely screwed. And if it is there, it will catch you. And it will give you the time and the space that you need to pick yourself up, dust yourself down and start all over again. It's a safety net. Special educational needs is a safety net. You fall off normal schooling, you land in the net, fall through cracks, you get looked after, and then you go back into the school with a diagnosis and a treatment, and things will go much better. Now, if some people truly choose to use that safety net as a trampoline, whether you're talking about unemployment benefit or whether you're talking about disability benefit, whether you're talking about a special educational needs diagnosis or whether you're talking about anything at all

43:14that involves my money as a taxpayer, making its way towards you as a recipient of state support. Anything there, I'm okay. I mean, let's try harder if we think there is a lot of dodgy stuff going on to nip it in the bud, but let's not take away the safety net for the people that really, really need it. That's how I think about these stories. That's why I'm never going to join in the kind of condemnation or the suspicion or the unpleasantness because I think first and always of the people that need the help. Right-wing politics is designed to make you think first and always of the people who don't need the help, but receive it, largely mythical, army of people that are not actually doing a bit like immigration, actually. The people... No, I don't mean you. I mean, the ones I'm reading about. So, I prefer to look at the world as a place where if people are taking advantage of a brilliant system, it's not a reason to tear up the brilliant system.

44:16Ever. And that's my question for this hour. What do you reckon? How would it... How? And it's entirely counterfactual, isn't it? It's entirely theoretical. But how would your life, how would our lives have been different if special educational needs, diagnoses and treatments, and indeed even EHCPs had been in place when you were a kid on anything like the level that they are now. Time for a short break now. After that, that's more than enough from me. It's over to you. And we'll start with Lindsay, who's in Wakeford. Lindsay, what would you like to say? So, I'm in my 60s now and was diagnosed a couple of years ago, and I went all the way through school with nobody really understanding quite what was going on. What were you diagnosed with? So, I've been diagnosed with ADHD, and it's a very clear, clear cut diagnosis. So, all of my friends saying, you know, I was different quirky, all make sense now. And when I was

45:18probably about six years old, one of the teachers said to my parents, I think she's backward. And that was the term that was used. And I remember at that point, they were talking about putting me into some sort of special school. And it was a conference school, and one of the nuns, Sister Rosario, probably saved my educational life at an E-rate, because she said, I think she just needs more time. So, she started sort of hot-housing me. So, the Holy Trinity, what order was it? It was Saint Teresa's presentation conference for young ladies. But this nun was amazing, and just gave me some extra time and recognised that. Now, back then, ADHD wasn't heard of, it was just you were either backward, you know, or... What did that mean? What did that mean? The backwards. Yeah, so what were you doing that earned this, or nearly got you this label? I wasn't concentrating in class. Because you couldn't. Because you couldn't. I couldn't, and I couldn't do the work. I was fidgety all the time.

46:20I misbehaved, but like you, obviously it sounds. And I just wasn't getting anywhere, but within probably about three years of this nun sticking with me, and really, you know, helping me, I was top of the class. And I stayed like that all the way through, but the pressure that I felt on me to perform at that level, and now I look back and think my entire working life as well was hard, and I never understood why it was so hard. And now I think I do. So, for me, an early diagnosis, if they had of known more, and they had of known why I did things like fidget. I mean, this was a conference school, but they like to use a ruler on you. So, if I was fidgeting in my seat, I would be brought up to the front of the class, and I'd be whacked around the table. Actually, we can smile about that now, but that's actually awful. It is. Because the idea that you were doing it on purpose, this is why I often mention getting beaten a lot at a similar age, because the idea was that it was a deterrent. If you got beaten,

47:21you wouldn't do it again, but if you couldn't help yourself from doing it again, then the beatings were absolutely brutal. One, they were cruel and unusual punishment. They were terrible. And the thing is, I think that the parents acknowledged the fact that that was part of the way the Haiti was dealt with at school. So, yes, I might have got less of the big ruler around the back of my legs and on my part. I wonder if we could do that. I mean, we can't. I'm just thinking out loud, but if we could make, you know, we go back, all the kids that got beaten more than the others, because there's always every cohort, isn't there, every year. I can still remember the names of the lads that would compete with me for the most beatings per time. And they'd be in different years. And sometimes there'd be a sort of camaraderie, because you'd be queuing up outside the headmaster's study, and you'd see the lad from two years below, and you'd try and pass on some wisdom about how best to deal with the pain afterwards and all that sort of thing. I wonder, I wonder how, but what that Vendigran would look like now, with the ones that did have ADHD or something, and got beaten more than everybody else. Why did you seek a diagnosis so late in life,

48:25if you don't mind me asking? I had a really successful life in a great career. And then, first of all, COVID hit, and that sort of, I was one of the few that wasn't furloughed, but had all my team furloughed, and that put a lot of stress on me. Then I decided to go into consultancy and was working more on my own outside of a team. And each time, I think that the parameters of work were changed, and each time, I think I started to notice that I wasn't coping as well with things. And then I actually read an article by a journalist I know, and in the times, I think it was, and she had had problems in her life with alcohol and drugs, and she always came across to me as being the most together same person. And I thought, well, hang on a minute, if she can have it, and I'd never really believed in it, you know, just as I didn't really ever believe in things like dyslexia, because back in the 60s and 70s, you didn't, you just thought it was a bit rubbish. Of course, but then also, a lot of people queuing up to tell you that it was all alone in this as well. Still are. So I went to get diagnosed, and sure as hell, I was quite a strong ADHD, which now,

49:32it's all about knowledge, it's about understanding, and not seeing it as being a weakness, but just understanding why, you know, why some days I just can't force myself to do much at all. So you're kind of to yourself as a consequence? I am much kind of, yeah, definitely, but I'm never going to use it as, it's never going to be an excuse. It's just, you know, it's something that I understand now, and I just wish I'd had that knowledge, you know, back when I was a child. Yeah, and you're not the only one, Jays and Oxford, Jad, what would you like to say? Because I was in care, especially in the early 90s, I was a brown child as well, I'd gone to 14 different schools. So, by the age of 11. Flip in egg. That's a lot of schools. It is. So the early part of my school, and I think was kind of marked by, you know, your language like she's sick, I was in remedial class, I couldn't read, I couldn't write,

50:37and you know, I have to park that separately to the type of family I've been at the time. I'd just always remember sitting on the edge of whichever playground as the new brown girl in very white area when it was acceptable to be told to go back home and all that kind of stuff, but I just remember watching, how do I do it? What I have to do to be accepted into a group, and I would watch the games or what they said, and I would keep trying, and I was always rejected, and in the end, you know, much as much of my school life was just spent alone in the library. Teachers got really angry with me because if my brain works, I would ask lots of questions about why, why this, why that, because I was also in my trauma, I was also trying to work out how this works, how it works, and how you could fit into it. And the only place I could find that was by asking teachers, why, why, why? I suppose my turn around to make, and it wasn't really a turn around

51:39made, but one English teacher, you know, spoke to me and said, you know, you're okay at this English name. You know, my math teacher just left me in the back of the class because it didn't matter what they tried. I just couldn't do it, so I'm not going to say that the school was help, but in between being bullied, you know, and then started stuff that happened in school. So when I asked myself now, you know, I'm 46, and I got my diagnosis because, you know, I I entered the teaching profession about 10 years ago, and every year I kept kind of crashing and burning. And the same thing was happening. I would walk into the stuff and I'm still, what thing, how do I do it? How do I talk to people? But I just say the same thing as to say short so that's masking, is it? Is that learning? So on a Monday morning, you get 20 colleagues to say, good morning, that was all we kept, and your brain says, I don't really want to ask it because you're wasting my time. Now, I don't mean to be rude. I just so so therefore you withdraw,

52:45and you just go and hide in your classroom, and that's the same as what it was like for me at school, because you're still working out, you know, 40 odds. I don't know why I can't behave in the same way, and I don't know what's wrong with me. And I think I still believed that I was sick because I've been called stupid. Even though I've become a teacher, and even though this is the most incredible bit, you know, and it might not have happened before, but I'm just about to start my PhD on a fully paid up scholarship. Congratulations. And I suppose I would send my books on about to publish to that teacher who told me that I should never write or speak, right? And I suppose what I would say is what difference does having a diagnosed assessor for a day to do an autism or something? It validates that when you're being judged time and time again for having had 10 jobs in the last 10 years, you can't, because you can't stay, because you'd love to teach a bit,

53:46but you're still working out the adult bit, and you don't know why you're so difficult, and actually you're not awkward what it allows you to do is find peace, and just say, well, oh, okay, that's what it is. That's what it is. And that liberates you. That means that you can then do things that you might not have been able to do before. Do your concentration levels even improve, or you just approach things differently in the way that suits you. One hundred percent, and in two years, just in two years, I've completed a master's with a distinction. I left teaching, and I've done that just with the bones of the truth of that's how your brain works, but I still thought, you know, I left school for new GCSEs, and that still follows me, and it's a funny story. I was asked last week by a college if I could provide my maths GCSEs again, and this life has been following me for about 20 years, because I just say, yes, I have it, and I lifted the lid, and I said, look,

54:49don't have it, I'm never going to have it, and it's not because I'm ancient. And you know, say the college said, well, it's mandatory, you need to do it, and I said, let, you know, well, I don't have one, I've never had one, I'm not going to do it. It's your choice. You can either accept it, you've got a very qualified teacher teaching our kids that do GCSE failed research, and then the ones that need the most help. And it is liberating, because they said, okay, all right, we appreciate that. That's my performance, and not by my 30-year-old exam grade, or... Finally, finally. I'm allowed to teach in a college the most disadvantaged kids with the biggest qualifications they will ever see from a teacher, and finally, someone said, it's okay. And it took a while, but you hung in there as well, which many people wouldn't have been able to do. I think that the people who end up almost giving up on themselves, sometimes the saddest stories, but yours is an inspiration, and congratulations, good luck with the PhD. Ben's in

55:54Tumberidge Wells, Ben, what would you like to say? Education is teaching the teachers what at HD is, and what it does to people on how the how these youngsters think. When I was 12 years old, not by nose, but I was given a project. I was told I was depressed. They just didn't understand why I was acting, why I was acting. They didn't... How were you acting? Just to miss me, how are you... For me, as a kid, it was the embarrassment of not only answering that question in the lesson, not knowing why I had so much pride about myself, but I didn't like people showing me up, and that just deteriorated me. My advice would be, my... I've got free children now. My middle child has been diagnosed, which is what my wife kicks and fans mean. You need to start the pathway. You need to get yourself to your boat, no, to this United. I did try to use tablets, and it was such a difference, and I can believe how much you could just think clearer. That noise just sort of... Tell me more about that.

56:59About when you realised the difference, when the medication kicked in. The only way I can explain it is like the radio that's not finely tuned, you still got that hushing noise in the background. It's just crazy. It's absolutely crazy, enough. I didn't think it would make that sort of difference. But you also didn't know that that was optional. You just thought that was the world, right? That's great. And then even the parents now say, I don't want my kids having these tablets, I haven't used meditation, but I've lost my tummy. I've lost my tummy when I was young, do you know? Because you become more you, not less you. So sometimes we think, oh dear tablets will take the edge off me or I'll become, but you're describing becoming more you and actually drowning out the distraction noise. Exactly, and you can think clear, you can think before you apply to a sort of message. It's crazy, and my advice to all the parents, is just educate yourself from what it is. Harvest, my oldest son is 17 now, he's in construction,

58:00he's done really well. My child's father is doing horse riding, he's really, he's great, and they're doing really well, but it's just educating the teachers who educate. There's a line, isn't it? I've never remembered it correctly, about you, you call it a fish a failure if it can't climb a ladder. You've just got to recognise that we're built for different things. We are, we're all built differently. You've got a harvest of energy in our, and I'll never let it stop me. As much as I didn't have a single GCSE, I went on to get my NVQ in brick, brick land because my day was a builder. Yeah. And I went on to get them always with my wife, at the age of 19, and get my third house. You know, so, you know, it's only stop you, just harvest that energy and then harvest things, things get better when you get the diagnosis. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I don't think that the tablets or the medications of burden at all is completely the opposite. You know, don't, don't, don't sweat. You're an inspiration. That's such a lovely way to tell the story, to, to, to describe what you've described. Just so straightforward and that idea of it just closing down the noise, and the noise

59:05is distracting and annoying, and it, and, and it makes you do things that you regret almost the minute you've done them, right? You sort of just say something or you blurt out or you do, and you're just like, why have I done that again? Why aren't you going to get into a boulder now? I'm only going to get into trouble, and it's not the real you. It's not, and it really isn't, you know, and, I mean, I'd love to apologise to all my, my, my friends are still there. Well, they had to go through and I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because you don't do, because it wasn't, it wasn't you that was doing it. It was, it was, it was the diversity. That's lovely. Thank you. I'm so glad you were listening today, so it's a really, it's reached parts that I can't reach. God, so I hope you took as much from today's show as I did. I've said it before, but I'll take again the standard of contribution from our callers now is absolutely extraordinary. Do join us again tomorrow from 10 on LBC, or right here shortly afterwards. This has been a global production.